Why the time is now for an advanced unified communications solution

As we all learned over the last few years, it’s vitally important for enterprises to have a solid plan to ensure their people are able to continue collaborating and communicating, at a highly productive level, in the most extreme situations. As enterprises reflect back on their particular level of preparedness to the pandemic, one thing has become clear. The experience forced virtually every organization to react in order to survive, let alone succeed, during such a challenging time. Further, it accelerated the already present need to migrate to a more modern network that would allow them to adapt to the changing needs of their business.

Where are you on your network journey?

A lot of organizations have realized that the solutions they have in place — particularly those implemented in a reactionary manner — just aren’t built to do what they need to help them achieve their unique objectives. The solutions worked as a stopgap measure, and helped many enterprises through a rough patch. Yet, many organizations are finding that the solutions they relied on to meet the unforeseen circumstances of yesterday just aren’t sustainable.

Hopefully, we’re all transitioning to an updated version of business as usual, as restrictions have eased considerably nationwide. But along with the easing of regulations many workplaces have changed irrevocably. Now, it’s time to stop and think about what we want our modernized networks and applications to be able to do, for today, and for tomorrow.

There are products available today that can meet you wherever you are on your network journey. Over the past few years many organizations have opted to adopt a Webex-based solution that provided what they were looking as an answer to pressing needs, and feel that the solution they chose is right for right now and into the foreseeable future. There are also trunk products that can connect to any premise-based systems that you have in place today.

Many organizations still rely on a mix of proprietary systems, such as collaboration apps and older voice systems. The result is often a siloed and fragmented experience with employees manually switching between applications to complete tasks. When you eventually grow to the point that a premise-based system no longer meets your needs, we can help you move to a cloud-based UCaaS solution.

Enterprise organizations need a modern network with secure SD-WAN

To meet the ongoing communication needs of today’s large enterprises, it has become necessary for organizations to have a modern network with secure SD-WAN. This helps organizations transition to a hybrid network architecture — one that integrates their existing network — and allows them to migrate their networking needs at their own pace. They require a high-performing platform that adapts and scales to the evolving needs of the organization, is fast and flexible, can handle large, complex data and applications, simultaneously supports up to 50,000 distributed workers, and provides access to multiple cloud service providers — all at the same time.

One of the recurring themes I hear from large organizations, regarding network requirements, is the desire for a fully connected portfolio of business-critical applications easily accessible from the network solution. This clearly points to the necessity of advanced network connectivity. And, of course, it also benefits an organization to assure the network is managed properly, in order to make all of these things work in an optimal fashion.

Organizations must have a secure infrastructure in place, and clearly need a solution that can integrate with current applications a given enterprise relies on. Examples of these applications are customer relationship management (CRM) platforms like Salesforce, or their chosen Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) system.

Sounds like a tall order, but solutions exist today that can answer all of the above needs.

Spectrum Enterprise can design, connect, and manage the network to simplify your operations. Or if you prefer, we can co-manage it with you. Our newest offering, Enterprise Network Edge does everything mentioned above, and also secures your network against advanced security threats, even at high throughput, because it’s powered by Fortinet, an industry leader in security.

Today’s business climate makes UCaaS a perfect fit for many organizations

Organizations are finding exactly what they need in a fully managed, cloud-based unified communications solution that brings together calling, messaging, meetings, virtual workspaces, and more. This single, end-to-end experience helps employees focus on value-added collaboration and customer service while offering easy integration with third-party applications like customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Many have found all of that in a single application that delivers a unified experience for today’s challenging hybrid work environment, which is further complicated by a geographically dispersed workforce. A modern UCaaS solution delivers a consistent experience no matter where team members are located, and the right solution can automate critical updates and keep data safe with end-to-end, built-in encryption — while also eliminating the need to maintain equipment, voice systems and collaboration platform.

Learn more about Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS).